Meeting an Assassin
by BlackAnimeDemonWolf
Summary: The ASL - Trio gain a sister... She s older than them, an assassin and definitly not cute. Oh, and if you try to tell her she needs to be protected, she ll probably rip your head off, and no, she s not interested in romance or love. And whats this about six types of Devil Fruits? My first attempt at writing, I have no idea what I m doing!
1. Chapter 1: Beginnings

So this is my first attempt at writing. I´ve got no idea what I´m doing and this will probably suck. I´ll probably add some chapters later on, but yeah. Constructive criticism welcome! I own Amarock but that´s it.

* * *

Three boys were walking under the trees of the forest covering most of Dawn Island. The older ones, Sabo and Ace were leading while Luffy stumbled after them, a stick he found a couple minutes ago trailing behind him limply.

"I´m huuuuuungry! Why are there no animals around?" he complained.

"Shut up! You´ll chase anything living away if you´re this loud!" Ace immediately retorted.

"Not like there´s much around anyway." Luffy grumbled "I want Meat!".

"You´re no better than Luffy, Ace. This _is_ strange though. Normally at least the bigger animals would be around trying to eat us but even they´re gone. I wonder why…" Sabo trailed off, jaw going slack.

They just arrived at a clearing and in one of the gargantuan trees opposite of them a giant wolf was hanging in the branches.

"WOW! She´s bigger than Tiger Lord!" Luffy bellows.

"I wonder if that's the reason we can´t find anything to eat?" Ace notices wryly.

"We should probably leave before it wakes up." Sabo tries even as Luffy goes running over to the base of the wolfs tree, stick forgotten on the forest floor.

Despite immediately starting after him Sabo and Ace can only watch Luffy reach the opposite treeline seconds before them. They desperately hope that the beast will stay asleep till they can get their idiot brother to safety but just as they´re about to catch him Luffy jumps and _stretches._

Then they realize even they don´t have enough luck for this new-found danger to continue sleeping despite Luffy catapulting himself on top of it and they won´t ever climb fast enough to reach him in time if the wolf decides to eat him.

They still _try_ though, simply because he´s their precious little brother.

Then Luffy lands on top of his target and the wolf opens one eye, glancing down at them. It sniffs the air and yawns, showing a maw full of blindingly white dagger-like teeth before turning its head around to the grinning, Straw hat wearing boy sitting on its back.

"Hello Wolf-san! I´m Luffy and I´ll be the next Pirate King!" he introduces himself whilst the animal blinks at him "Those are my brothers, Ace and Sabo!" he points at the two 12 year old's still frantically trying to reach them and the wolf follows the gesture "We´re very hungry! Do you have any meat?" the question draws another blink and then a noise oddly similar to a laugh escapes the wolfs throat.

Added to the fact that it didn´t make any move against them, the noise is unexpected enough to give Ace and Sabo pause halfway up the tree.

Luffy is still grinning when the wolf wraps it´s long tail around him, and _jumps_.

Now that wouldn't be surprising if this was a normal tree, but we´re talking about here. No living being should survive a fall from that height. But just as the beast is about to come crashing down and likely break every bone in its body, giant bat-like wings unfold on each side of Luffy and they land perfectly fine.

The animals fur is midnight black, but it´s paws, as well as the tip of its tail are a brilliant blood red. Sharp, yellow eyes meet Aces own and he can see the intelligence in them. The wings are black too, with red lines running from the "thumbs" towards the back like veins.

The wings flap once more and then Luffy is sitting on the floor next to a _girl_ , no wolves to be seen anywhere.

She doesn´t _look_ like a typical girl though. They can´t make out much of her body because of her clothes, but her frame is definitely female. She´s wearing a loose black sweater with startlingly real but definitely non-human yellow eyes (similar to the wolfs, Ace notes, even if they aren´t _quite_ as sharp) that seems like it could hide an innumerable amount of weapons and black, equally loose sweatpants. Her feet are clad in black combat boots (does she know there´s other colours too?) with some non-reflective metal wrapping around the toes and heel.

Even her messy hair is black, reaching to her waist without anything holding it together. The tips of said hair however are a brilliant blood red, resembling the wolfs fur. He hopes it´s dyed or natural. Her skin is tanned and her eyes are brown with a slight reddish hue to them.

They twinkle in amusement as she watches him and Sabo pick their way down to the forest floor. Luffy´s laughing for some reason-has been since the landing and the unknown girl looks like she´s struggling to keep her own laughter in. Ace´d shout at them, but he´s too focused on the stranger and getting down safely.

When his feet _finally_ touch the floor again, Luffy repeats his earlier question about meat and the girl tells him to follow her after giving a positive answer but he grips his brothers arm before he can even move. Once his youngest sibling is safely stowed away behind Sabo and his trusty pipe he cuts right to the important questions.

"Who the fuck are you?" he all but demands, because honestly the whole wolf-with-wings-transforms-into-girl thingy has him slightly freaked out.

She smiles at him and it´s not the nice expression he saw on the village girls he sometimes met but instead it´s sharp and feral and tells him that she knows that _he_ knows they wouldn´t stand a chance in a fight.

Not if the sword on her hip and the way she holds herself were any indication.

But just as he is about to lose his patience she answers "My _name_ is Amarock. If you´re looking for the _who_ though you´ll just have to follow me, won´t you? I have meat, if you´re truly as hungry as Strawhat over there said."

Then she just turns around and walks away. She shows her back to him and that's _aggravating._ But contrary to popular believe he _does_ know when he´s outclassed and if she doesn´t attack him or his brothers he won´t attack either. Still, that doesn´t mean they´re suddenly friends, or that he trusts her.

"I vote we leave and go hunting somewhere else.".

"But Aaaace, I´m hungry! I want meat now!" Luffy was quick to object and Sabo agreed reluctantly.

"If she wanted to hurt us she probably would have already done that. We aren´t likely to find any other animals either, even if we went to the other side of the mountain now we´d get there after nightfall. If we want to eat dinner today Amarock-san is our best bet.".

Ace frowned, looking at them and sighed. "Okay. But be careful. I don´t trust her. ".

"Don´t worry Ace, she´s a good Person!" Luffy shouted as he ran after Amarock.

She was quite far from them already but they didn´t notice because she never made a single sound.

"You don´t trust anyone, Ace." Sabo pointed out, rolling his eyes "But don´t worry. It´ll be fine. Probably.".

Not wanting to be left behind the older boys also ran after the wolf girl and their brother.

xXxXx

They walked for about two minutes before they ended up in front of a rock wall overgrown with mosses and other plants. After pushing aside some vines Amarock entered a well-hidden tunnel.

Sabo was impressed, if you didn´t know what you were looking for you´d never find it. After walking _uphill_ of all directions for a short time they entered a cave.

It was obvious someone lived here, there were crates _everywhere_. Without them there would likely have been enough room for a small family to live here, but as it was four people made it seem nearly stuffed.

The crates on one wall were full of books, apparently their new friend(?) liked reading. Or she collected books for some reason, either one really. Another chest next to the entry was full of weapons of all kinds and one at the other end of the cave was full of what looked like fruits, but it was hidden in the shadows. The rest of that wall was dedicated to furs, skins and bones of animals as well as food and water.

In the middle of the cave there was a fire spreading light and the smoke escaped through a second tunnel on their right side. There also were _tons_ of dead animals hanging from the ceiling for some reason.

It was pretty cool inside so the carcasses didn´t rot, but Sabo still felt slightly uncomfortable. He and his brothers sometimes kept a meat supply for emergencies, but never on this scale. The animals weren´t skinned or anything so Sabo suspected they were only waiting to be used for something or other. He knew that not only skins and furs but also necklaces made of teeth or pulverized bones (apparently there were people who believed powder made of rabbit bones could heal illnesses, who knew where they got ideas like _that_ ) scored high prizes in Goa Kingdom.

Sadly, neither he nor Ace had the skill or tools to make them and he wasn´t crazy enough to think Luffy would fare better than them, so they were limited to skinning their catches. Maybe they could make a deal with the inhabitant of the cave? Only if she didn´t try to attack them, of course, but it was worth thinking about.

There was no bed, surprisingly and the whole place gave off an aura of _disarray_.

Amarock took some meat from one of the crates and used a pocket knife which appeared out of nowhere to slice of a piece and eat it.

"There. Not poisoned or whatever." She explained, giving the rest of the meat to the boys with a wink towards Ace, who was still glaring at her with crossed arms. No-one but Sabo caught the fond look crossing her face as she stowed the knife away in the depths of her Sweater and he filed that away for later consideration.

"If you need more take as much as you want. I´ve got enough." she offered, gesturing to the ceiling and taking some _raw_ meat for herself.

Sabo sighed before digging in, no use overthinking this now.

He had to admit he was curious about their hosts abilities though. And all the _books_! There had to be so much knowledge collected here! Some of them looked outright ancient, like they would crumble to dust if he touched them. Those were his favourite kind of books-they often held lost knowledge from times long past.

Just knowing about the existence of a place like this made him all fidgety. He always loved to learn about new stuff and read even back when he was with his so-called parents and there weren´t many books on the mountain.

"You can read them if you want, you know." he nearly jumped at Amarocks voice, seemed he wasn´t as discreet as he thought.

"Really? You´re sure you don´t mind?"

"Nah, it´s fine. Knock yourself out. Just make sure to put them back when you´re done."  
He carefully moved over and took one of the newer-looking books with the charming title "Navigating the Grand Line - How to not get killed in three days" and sat down next to the fire. He opened the cover and all but left this world.

xXxXx

Meanwhile, Luffy had finished eating and was bombarding his newest sibling - he had decided that the cool wolf-girl would be their sister the moment she carried him down from that tree, she simply didn´t know that yet - with questions.

"Are you a pirate? Do you travel? Did you have any adventures? Can you tell us about them? Where are your Nakama? Do you have a Pirate treasure too? How did you transform from a wolf into a human? Why did the wolf have wings? Do you have wings too? Can you fly? What´s your dr…".

"Woah there, slow the fuck down! Lemme see... I´m not a pirate, but I do travel sometimes and yes I´ve had adventures before. No, I can´t tell you about them. I do have some treasure somewhere around here and I transformed because of my Devils Fruit, which is also the reason for the wings. I don´t have wings right now, as you can see, but I could grow a pair and yes I can fly. Do you know what Devil Fruits are?".

"You´re not a Marine, are you?" Ace, who had been looking through the weapons, interrupted before Luffy could answer.

"Nah. I´m neither Pirate nor Marine, don´t worry." Amarock narrowed her eyes at him "But why would you want to know that?"

"I´ve also eaten a Devils Fruit, so I do know what they are! See?" Luffy exclaimed proudly (and loudly), stretching his cheeks and breaking the tension before it could even build "They give you cool powers but then you can´t swim anymore, which kinda sucks…".

"That´s true, but how come you can transform into an animal, Amarock-san? Luffys fruit does something completely different. Aren´t there some rules for the powers the fruits contain, or are they completely unpredictable?" Sabo wondered, stopping Luffys rambles and catching both his and Ace´s attention.

"Well, first of all, quit the –san shit. I´m 15, dammit. Second, yes there are "rules" as you put it, namely different types of fruits, which grant different types of powers. There are two main types: the Normals, which everyone who´s not a civilian knows about and the Legendaries, which officially don´t exist. Then both the Normals and the Legendaries have three subtypes: Parmecia, Zoan and Logia. The most common fruits for both main groups are Paramecia types, which basically grant the user superhuman abilities or traits. The fruit Luffy has eaten is one of those. The second type is Zoan, which allows the user to transform into an animal - I have eaten a Legendary Zoan type - and acquire some or all traits of that animal. Zoan users are normally able to speak to their type of animal but only to their type. Sometimes Zoan types also have a Hybrid form, half human and half animal or multiple animal forms. The rarest fruits are Logia types. Those allow the user to control an element and transform their own body into said element, making them immune to most attacks. Normals generally are more common than Legendaries - a Legendary Paramecia will make a Normal Logia seem common and there has never been a recorded case of a Legendary Logia user. Legendaries are stronger than Normals most of the time too, so basically the rarer, the stronger." she explained.

"Is there another significant difference between Normals and Legendaries? And why does your wolf form have wings?" Sabo immediately asked.

"Well, we don´t know if there´s a difference between the two Logia types since there are no known Legendary Logia, but there is a difference between the Paramecia types: a Legendary Paramecia can be awakened. This is mostly confused with simply being a rare trait of Normal Paramecia fruits but it actually isn´t. A awakened fruit will not only affect the users body but also the environment. How you go about awakening a fruit is unknown and there is no way to tell whether or not your fruit has such a stage till it happens. The difference between the Zoan types is quite simple: a Legendary Zoan combines two animals. That's also the reason I have wings, my Fruit, the Ookami Omori no Mi combines wolf and bat.".

"So Lu here might´ve eaten a Legendary Paramecia? And we won´t find out till he awakens his fruit?" Ace asked incredulously.

"Exactly!" Amarock exclaimed cheerfully as a very big bat suddenly vaulted itself from above them and flew outside, shocking everyone but the girl. It looked like it wore some sort of armor made of the stuff that also was on Amarocks boots, but it was gone too fast to be sure.

"Now, since Ash´s going hunting I´ll go out too. Both bats and wolves prefer the moon over daylight, after all. It´s pretty late already, so I suggest you stay here for now. Just don´t touch the crate with the fruits over there and don´t destroy anything. G´night!" and with that she was gone.

It took some time for them to relax and actually fall asleep, especially Ace, but in the end they all drifted off.

xXxXx

The next morning Sabo woke up early. He searched the crates for more books he might want to read (and just maybe he was curious about the girl too) while he still had the chance, until Amarock returned. When she did half an hour later, he had found a couple interesting books and a box full of gold. There was more than he expected and he wanted to ask her about it. He also wanted to ask her if just maybe he could read some more of those books.

"Say, Amarock-san, would it be possible for me to come back some time? Your books are extremely interesting and I would like to read more of them, if you don´t mind." He asked cautiously.

"Sure, come back whenever. I´m pretty much nocturnal though, so if you want something specific you should come at night. Also, not a single book leaves the cave. And quit the fucking –san!"

Her hair had changed, he noticed. It seemed a bit less wild and was pulled back in a ponytail, but it still stuck out in every possible direction. He smiled widely.

"Of course! Thank you!". He wasn´t concerned about her cursing, as he had a feeling that was normal.

"Not a problem. Tell your brother that I´d be willing to teach him how to use those weapons too, if he´s interested." She chuckled.

"Could I also ask you another question?"

"Sure. There´s no guarantee that I´ll answer though."

"Hmm. How did you get that much money? I doubt it´s all from selling animals."

"Ah, so you found my treasure box. I take it you know about Marines and Pirates?" Sabo nodded and she continued "There are two more parties out there. One would be the revolutionaries, who mostly fight the corruption in the government and stuff. Their full motives are unknown, but they also free slaves or take down idiot nobles, like those retards in High Town."

"They sound pretty cool. So you are one of them?" Sabo interrupted. He didn´t have any problem with his parents being called retards, because honestly…they _were_ retards. Amarock sent him a glance he couldn´t quite decipher before answering.

"No, let me finish, Pipe-face. I´m with the fourth group. We aren´t as numerous as Marines or Pirates or even the Revolutionary Army and we don´t normally travel the seas but we´re still an important part of the power balance in this world. You see, I´m an Assassin."

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Thanks for reading! Please leave some feedback on the way out!


	2. Chapter 2

So, I´d like to say that I have a plausible explanation for taking this long with the second chapter, but I don´t. Sorry. I don´t own shit!

* * *

„You´re an _assassin_?" Sabo asked.

"Yep." Amarock confirmed, rummaging in one of her many crates.

Sabo blinked, trying to digest that the girl who picked them up in the forest and gave them food apparently killed people for a living. Of course there were some strange things about her; she ate _raw_ meat after all. And she was nocturnal. And there were dead animals hanging from her ceiling. And she lived in a cave with a batnamed Ash.

Okay, so maybe there were a lot of weird things about her.

But she didn´t seem like a bad person and Luffy obviously thought she was nice too. That was enough to calm him down and not send him running out of the cave with his brothers and the pipes.

Of course, he wasn´t stupid and thus knew that she could have fooled them all, but as far as he knew assassins were not supposed to invite their victims to wherever they lived and give them food or a place to sleep. Or tell them about secret Devil Fruits and organizations.

Also, if Luffy said someone was a good person he was usually right.

Still, she had obviously been the reason there were no animals around the day before and she didn´t even do anything except dozing in a tree.

In the one-and-a-half-ish minutes he spent thinking Amarock pulled out some wool and a crochet hook, sat herself down and _started crocheting_. _Assassins don´t crochet._

The smirk on her lips told Sabo that she knew exactly how little she was helping him understand everything – and the wool certainly _didn´t_ help.

"So you want me to believe that I´m sitting in a cave with a crocheting assassin, who picked up three random kids in a forest, gave them food and let them sleep in her cave. Plus the whole Legendary Devil Fruits stuff you told us." he finally asked for clarification.

"Hmmmm…" Amarock pretended to think it over. "Yes, yes I am!" she exclaimed far too cheerfully.

"Awesome…" Sabo mumbled, somehow making the word sound like its own opposite, as he pinched himself. "Not a dream either…"

The following loud rumble of laughter had the youngest and eldest sibling turning on the cave floor, but luckily Luffy didn´t wake up.

Ace however, did.

After seeing his brothers expression he turned towards Amarock, who was trying to muffle the amused noises escaping her throat with a hand, wool and hook abandoned on the floor.

"Wha´s goin´on?" he slurred.

"So you kill people for a living?" Sabo asked, still a tiny bit shocked and ignoring his brother.

"Well, I don´t kill just anyone, but essentially yes." Amarock answered.

"Woah, wait WHAT?" Ace burst out, effectively waking the youngest sibling.

"Amarock´s an Assassin, Ace." Sabo finally snapped out of it and looked at his brother.

Ace, upon hearing the news, immediately snagged his pipe and placed himself in front of Luffy, ready to protect the youngest if necessary. Amarock only snorted at him.

"Calm down, Freckles. If you were my target you´d be dead by now. And who´d hire an Assassin to feed someone they want dead anyway?"

That … made sense. And explained why Sabo was so calm and hadn't woken them up.

He still wanted to know what exactly happened while he slept though, so he asked. Amarock once again explained her occupation to the three kids after they woke Luffy.

"Blondie here was rummaging through my stuff and found my money." Two heads swivelled around to look at their brother, one glaring, the other curious "Because he´s a clever little shit he noticed that it´s too much to come from simply selling animal skins or whatever. So he asked where it came from and I told him ´bout me being an Assassin. And some other shit I´m sure he´ll tell you later. Just for the record though: _I won´t kill anyone who doesn´t deserve it._ Or if the clients reason to hate them is stupid. No matter how much they´d pay." She fixed all of them with a glare, daring them to suggest something else.

"So you kill evil people and get paid for it? That´s so cool!" Luffy shouted, breaking the tension before it could even build.

It takes the brothers plus one a couple seconds to process the words before Amarock blinks, much like back when they first met.

"I guess that´s one way to say it …" she drawls, and the brothers laugh.

"So … how many assassins are there? And how does that work anyway?" Ace spoke up.

"No idea. We don´t really work as an organization or whatever. It´s more like one assassin has one or two others they´ll work with on a particularly difficult job but mostly we just travel around taking jobs without ever running into each other. Course there are some people with a reputation, but since we mostly use aliases when on a job no-one knows who those guys really are. Some of us agree to work only for the Marines or a certain Pirate crew, too. Or the revolutionaries" Amarock launches into another explanation.

"Then one assassin could just take anothers alias and nobody would ever know?" Sabo asks. He doesn´t quite know if he likes the idea…

"Well, if you try to impersonate someone alive they´re likely to kill you. On the other hand I took my teachers name for a while after he died, so it does work. The alias system grants us anonymity, but it also means that if an assassin dies and someone else takes the name nobody will notice." The wolf-zoan says. "Now, enough talking! I wanna sleep and you gotta be hungry. Eat something and get outa here!" she takes some more meat from the crate, throws the cooked pieces at them and bites into a raw one.

"Okay …" Sabo sweatdropped at the quick change in mood.

Meanwhile Luffy was already munching away happily. He had been a bit worried something happened when Ace woke him up and both his brothers soul-voices sounded _worried-fear-danger?-curious-alert_ with their future sister´s adding _apprehensive-nervous-hopeful_ to the mix, but now everyone settled down and there were only slight traces of nervousness left in his brothers souls. Amarocks soul-song was _happy-content-pleased_ and he cocked his head to the side, resolving to keep it that way.

A grin stretched across his face, ear to ear, as he jumped up and dragged his brothers back into the woods , shouting an enthusiastic promise to be back for more meat. But for now they´d leave. Amarock did say she was tired after all and you don´t bother people when they want to sleep.

Later Sabo would realise that he forgot to ask about a deal for stuff to sell in Goa Kingdom, but with the whole assassin thing he thinks it´s understandable.

xXxXx

Despite wanting to read some more books it took Sabo a couple days to visit the cave again, simply because he had to convince Ace that he would be fine – his brother could be quite distrustful and overprotective at times. Once he managed that he needed to find a way to keep Luffy from following him after refusing to let the youngest tag along. The only reason he refused anyway was that he´d "only" read and Luffy would be bored. Bad things tended to happen when the rubber boy was bored, so he wanted his younger brother to stay with the older one. That way both Luffy and Ace would be too busy to get stupid ideas. Hopefully.

But now that he was standing in front of the entrance he couldn´t help feeling a tiny bit of nervousness creeping up his spine. Once again he checked the time via sun and let out a long breath. He had chosen to come at noon, because Amarock said she was nocturnal, which meant she _should_ be sleeping right now. If she did, everything would be fine and he´d be gone before she woke up.

If that _wasn´t_ the case it meant she´d lied to them. Since they don't exactly like liars there would likely be a confrontation of some sort … he really didn´t want to think about that. Maybe they could sic Garp on her? Only as a last resort of course, nobody deserved having to deal with that man.

He finally pushed the plants hiding his destination from the world aside and entered the dimly lit tunnel. The cave itself hadn´t changed much: Some of animals hanging from the ceiling and a couple furs had disappeared but those were the only differences. There were still crates everywhere and a fire shed some light.

The one living here however was nowhere to be seen.

Sabo didn´t quite know what to make of that. On the one hand it could mean that she was out and about, doing whatever. Nevertheless, there was nothing even remotely resembling a bed in here and she might just be sleeping somewhere else, seeing how the stone floor had to be pretty uncomfortable.

Ah well, he´d worry about that later. For now he decided to use the chance and follow the second tunnel connecting to the cave-he had been curios about that one. It was pretty similar to the entrance except for being quite a bit shorter.

When he arrived at the end, he was left standing on a small ledge of stone, overlooking the ocean. Far below him, waves lapped against a cliff far too steep and slippery to climb. Said cliff ended in an overhang just a few feet above him, hiding his position from prying eyes.

For any normal (sane) person and most Devil Fruit Users this was a dead end: jumping or falling would be lethal because of the sheer height and well, water for the Fruit Users. The smooth, overhanging rock above also made climbing impossible.

If one was capable of flight, however it presented a near perfect escape route.

The view wasn´t bad either, but the ledge Sabo was standing on didn´t provide a lot of space, so he finished his examination and went back to the main cave.

There he once again tried to figure out where Amarock was. Assuming she hadn't lied about being nocturnal, she should be sleeping somewhere. For obvious reasons he didn't expect her to uphold human standards, which left wolves and bats as basic guidelines …

Bats.

Of course. They couldn´t just meet a completely normal, well-adjusted, SANE human being, could they? Nooo, it _had_ to be an eccentric old Marine, a couple crazy mountain bandits and now a weird teenager who killed people for a living and was currently using her feet to somehow hold onto the stone above him, sleeping soundly. A pair of black membranes was wrapped tightly around her body, still vaguely resembling a human.

A very furry human with bat ears, but still a human.

Finishing his mental rant about insane Marines, emotionally challenged bandit bosses and weird bat-assassins he sat down, sighed and started reading.

He continued visiting at noon first, but soon noticed that he couldn't find _any_ of the referenced works and would also rather spend the days with his brothers than reading. So he started coming at dusk. That worked out pretty well, Amarock was awake (pretty much, the assassin proved to be the _utter opposite_ of a "morning" person) and he wasn't too tired. He also started bringing Luffy along once distracting the boy became to troublesome. Surprisingly his brother didn't cause a lot of chaos.

When asked about it, he responded with "You don't bug people who are tired or sleeping, Sabo! It´s a rule! "and a quite adorable pout. The older teen had no idea where that idea came from, but decided to leave it at that. If it kept him from being woken by a hyperactive rubber ball in the middle of the night, he wasn't about to complain.

Of course, even when being considerate Luffy was still Luffy and so they always had to spend some time getting stuff back where it was apparently supposed to be. And the food inside tended to disappear far faster than what was normal.

Ace however still didn't trust Amarock, though at this point Sabo suspected his brother was only being stubborn. He refused to come anywhere near the cave and if Sabo and Luffy didn't come back on time chaos would ensue.

xXxXx

Thus, the oldest brother didn't see the assassin again until two weeks later.

Even if the only thing he really _saw_ was a big wolf-shaped shadow swooping from the sky, sinking it´s claws into the boar they were hunting and taking off again. With _their_ boar still in its clutches.

By now that was seven days in the past too, but it still irked him. Mainly because Luffy had started talking about Amarock becoming their sister back then and he didn't want that.

After all, then she would know. Who his father was and who Sabos parents are. And about Luffys ability.

And maybe, just maybe he didn't want her to hate them the way everyone else did.

Exactly those thoughts were the reason he was wandering aimlessly under the trees when a voice interrupted his brooding.

"What do you want, Commodore?"

Well that´s not good. What are the Marines doing here?

"I have a job for you _assassin_."

Assassin?

"So the oh-so-awesome guardians of the world need _my_ help? Never thought I´d see the day."

Wait-he knew that voice. Amarock? Ace started inching towards the arguments origin-this might be worth knowing about.

"Don´t get cocky, scum. The only reason you´re not being hunted down is your little _friend_."

"Riiiiight. Anyway, what do you want, I don´t have all the time in the world."

By now Ace could see the Marine-who had brought a few of his men along-and Amarocks back. She didn´t seem too pleased with the conversation, judging from the way her hand twitched towards her sword. The group was standing under the trees, a small gap not quite deserving of the name clearing and thus allowing him to come pretty close to the talking pair.

"The World Government recently learned that the Pirate King has a son."

Well Shit.

Time to pack their stuff and get the hell away from here. Though that might not save him from a professional assassin…

"So?"

Wait what? That was not the reaction he expected.

"What do you mean _so_? So you should be happy to kill him! Rid the world of a monster before it can hurt someone!"

"So you want me to kill a kid because of his father?" her voice was kind of strained by now, the grip on her sword white-knuckled. If Ace had been watching from a different angle, he´d have seen her eyes flash yellow.

When the Commodore nodded, preparing to say something else, Amarock seemed to blur only to end up behind the Marine, blade drawn and bloodied. A split-second later his head fell to the ground as the assassin held up two fingers.

"Okay, two things. One, I don´t do children. Two, **I don´t kill people because of their blood relations.** " The last part was a growl, nearly too deep to come from human throat "Any questions?" she asked the remaining Marines with a cold glare.

Said Sailors seemed to un-freeze and immediately ran off. Probably towards their ship.

Once they were gone, Amarock remained standing for some time, looking like she was waiting for something before turning and heading towards the cave with a shake of her head and a sigh.

After the assassin left, Ace went back towards the treehouse, still somewhat dazed.

Maybe their new … friend … wasn´t all that bad after all.

xXxXx

Somehow nobody was surprised when Ace accompanied his brothers the next time they went to the cave even though he hadn't told anyone about his little spying experience.

He didn´t quite know what to expect once he entered the tunnel, but he knew that Luffy plus Enclosed Space equalled Chaos and so he prepared for exactly that.

Which _might_ have been the reason he spend a minute standing in the entry like an idiot when Luffy simply sat down and started fiddling with something while Sabo went looking for some book at the other end of the cave.

Then he finally entered and also sat down, a bit lost since apparently everyone agreed on ignoring him. And where was Amarock? He started looking around and contemplated following the other tunnel, but decided against it when he saw a strangely shaped lump dangling above Luffys head. It looked kind of like a bat? A very big bat. With a human head?

…

 _Seriously?_

´Well, I guess I should have expected something like this´ he mused. Why hadn´t she woken up though? They had not been the most silent when entering. Weren´t assassins supposed to _notice_ when someone entered their bedroom – or what passed for it?

And … was Luffy seriously trying to crochet over there? Well that definitely was wool …

He spent another minute sitting next to the fire awkwardly and thought up a million other questions until Sabo _finally_ did something.

Granted, he didn´t expect an angry shout of " _How often do I have to tell you to_ _ **fucking organize**_ _your books!_ " and a flying encyclopaedia heading straight for a sleeping assassin, but it was something.

The book hit, and the assassin fell.

Luckily Luffy managed to jump out of the way.

When he refocused on the black lump lying on the floor, Sabo had already descended upon her with the wrath of an angry mother. After only ten seconds of scolding and repeated hitting with the poor book (which he found quite amusing, to be honest) the weird black blob changed to a human form with a tired groan and disentangled her limps.

"I freaking get it, dammit! I´ll do it … sometime … later. Now lemme slee-."

"No I won´t! Ace came today and Luffys _vibrating_ with energy. _You_ will _get up, help me organize your books_ and _help Lu with his training!_ " Sabos voice promised pain if he wasn´t obeyed – he could´ve probably ordered Garp around like that. "Oh and you can join us too if you want, Ace"

´Geez, thanks for remembering me.´

* * *

And again, thank you for reading! Leave some feedback please!


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